Government Funding for R&D and Productivity Growth

This article will be updated as the state of the academic literature evolves; you can read the latest version here. You can listen to this post above, or via most podcast apps here.What’s the return on government funding for research?There are a few places in the academic literature you can look to for insight. Jones and Summers (2021) uses a hypothetical thought experiment to make the case that, on average, every dollar of R&D spent probably generates several dollars in benefits via its long-ru...